That Punch In The Stomach
by PhantomPotterGirl
Summary: The sound of her name from his lips, with his voice caused her stomach to combust. It seemed silly, as soon as the two cabins were fitted together and they sat and laughed just like one big happy family, that Lily's sudden realization that she loved James Potter was something completely new. -L/J Post Pre-Seventh year.


A/N:So, this is a little brain fart that just randomly came to me in these boring holidays. Hopefully you won't kill me for the cheesiness and the complete lack of logic in this (I'll explain in the end because if I do it here, it'll completely ruin the story for you).

_Disclaimer:_ don't own :( I really want James. Am I the only one that yearns for this fictional character very awkwardly?

* * *

_That Punch In The Stomach_

* * *

It happened so quickly.

She woke up feeling exactly like herself in the morning, no feeling that the day was going to be different from any other. She woke up feeling that same flutter of excitement and sadness she got every other day on September the 1st. She was starting her last year of school, her seventh-year. This would be the last time she was ever going to King Cross' station, the final time she was going to ride the Hogwarts Express to school.

She met her friends at Diagon Alley a few weeks before. They reflected the last few days before school started, and they reflected the last five years living together, laughing and crying equally. Even then, Lily Evans didn't feel as if something completely life-changing was going to happen to her.

The day was going smoothly.

She received the usual kisses and hugs from her parents, wishing her a happy and successful year (and the usually embarrassing crying from her Mum, which took a while because trying to calm her down was almost impossible, before entering public). There was also the usual tight-lipped goodbye from Petunia which Lily replied coolly. Even after all these years, Lily felt an overwhelming sadness that Petunia still hated her—Petunia's jealously had buried itself far too easily in her heart, it was just part of something that she had grown up with and was accustomed too.

Letting that go would be like losing a limb.

She entered through the barrier and received the same hugs from her friends. The same concerns that this was the last year they were going to live together and see each other every day.

The day was _normal_ (well, as normal as travelling to a magic school in the middle of Scotland, in a train was).

She felt _normal_. Her friends were normal, everyone around her was somewhat normal. Everything was going completely and accordingly as planned, as always; as it _should _be.

Until it hit her.

It didn't even have the decency to wedge its way into her thoughts. It hit her; it hit her full-on like a kick in the face and a punch in the stomach.

It struck her so hard that she almost fell face-first into the ground, almost flying embarrassingly across Platform 9 ¾. The barrier to her left was forced to be her savoir from the embarrassing realization; heavy breaths emerged from her throat. Her eyes wild and her mind was twisting itself chaotically—she couldn't think straight. At first, wild accusations and crazy concoctions rolled through her head; her sense of logic thrown completely out the window.

She just couldn't believe it.

She was _clearly_ hexed. She _must _be. There was no other way about it! She _couldn't _be…or maybe? No. No, no, no, no, no. She was hexed and this was not real—this wasn't happening to her. She was not going to fall for it. She was hexed, _she was hexed_.

She. Was. Hexed.

Yet, when she tried to move her jelly-like limbs to walk; it hit her again. This time, she sank to the floor, unwillingly close to tears.

This couldn't happen to her. _This couldn't_. It was her last year! It was her _last year_. This couldn't happen—she was hexed. Who hexed her? She'll kill them, throw them out the Astronomy Tower, strangle them and throw them into a pot of boiling acid and watch them sizzle like a meat on a hook, _alive_.

She _had to be hexed_.

Her mind was wild, her stomach was flourishing, a swarm of hungry sharks eating through her stomach.

She was broke. She _broke_.

She was _hexed_. It was indefinite, but she _was_.

"Are you okay?"

The voice shocked her out of her thoughts. She almost slapped them right there. No she was not okay. She was _definitely not _okay. Did she look okay? She was far from okay. She was the type of okay that people ask when they're afraid that they'll have to try comforting, and the depressed person would have to lie unsuccessfully—and afraid-of-trying-to-comfort asker would brightly believe them. She was the type of okay that people stared at and pitied. For God's sake, she was on the floor of _course she was not okay_.

"I'm okay." She replied.

"Are you sure? You don't look like you do."

"I'm _fine_."

"Do you want help getting up?"

"No, it's fine." She got up, her flouncy limbs were still falling all over the place, and a hand had to be held against the barrier to stop her from collapsing.

"Want help with your trunk?"

"No, I'll get it."

"C'mon Lily. It's our _last_ year. You _never _let me help you."

"_Fine_, okay. Fine, you can do it."

Oh great. Even her strong _will _was crumbling, where was the bastard that hexed her?

James Potter smiled; and Lily Evans' stomach couldn't help but add another thousand sharks in her.

He loaded the trunk on board and smiled again. "So our last year, eh? Who would've thought that time would pass by so fast? And that you're not yelling at me this time?" he chuckled.

"Yeah…" she laughed uneasily.

That crooked smile of his grew on his features; and a thousand more sharks joined Lily's stomach. The smell of fumes from the Hogwarts Express was making her brain foggy and dreamlike.

"Are you sure you're okay? You're going a little…red." His concern touched her.

"I—I'm fine."

"Are you _sure_?"

"For God's sake, _yes_. I'm fine."

"Okay, okay. Where's the rest of your Spice Girls?"

She hid a smile, "I think they're already on board. Where are your misfits?"

"They're on board. Want to join cabins? It's our last year."

"Is that going to be your excuse to everything? Besides, the cabin hardly fits five, how could it fit all of us?"

"Lily, have you forgotten who we _are_?"

"Of course, you guys were called, _what_ was it again? The Maids?"

"Oi! Don't diss the name Lily. It's Marauders."

"_Whatever_."

"Seriously Lily. If we're going to be friends, then you're going to have to get the name right."

"What if I don't want to be friends?"

"Well, we're going to have to hang around sometime, considering that small insignificant fact that you're Head Girl and I'm Head Boy."

A silence. Sudden realization in three, two, one…

"You're joking."

"No, I'm not."

"You're _joking_."

"Sorry Lily—I'm serious as…well…as Dumbledore's beard."

"You're fucking _joking_. You _can't _be serious."

"Do you have anything better to say? Like: _oh my God James I'm so happy for you_!"

"You're _jo_—I so _do not _sound like that."

"You do actually. The guys joke around and pretend to be you all the time. Sirius has it like spot-on. I actually believed him a couple times."

"Shut up. You _can't _be Head Boy! You're too…"

"Too what? Handsome? Charming? Amazing?"

"…_stupid_."

Silence.

"Now that's rude."

She laughed, "No! I didn't mean as in you're _stupid_, like you're dumb or an idiot. I meant like that you're that kind of stupid in like a non-stupid way, you know what I mean?"

Another silence.

"No."

Laughing again: "I _mean _that I can't believe that you of all people, considering what you've done to Hogwarts in the past, were made _Head Boy_."

He laughed with her. "That's probably, the most _stupid _definition I've ever heard of stupid."

"Just forget it, c'mon Potter. Let's get on the train before it leaves us."

"James."

"What?"

"Well, considering that it's our last year, you might as well call me with my first name."

"Okay then _James_, let's get on the train."

"After you, _Lily_."

The sound of her name from his lips, with his voice caused her stomach to combust. It seemed silly, as soon as the two cabins were fitted together and they sat and laughed just like one big happy family, that Lily's sudden realization that she loved James Potter was something completely new.

"Hey Lily, you've got quite a stupid look on your face." He grinned.

She smirked, "Don't be so stupid James, my face is adorable."

"Don't be so stupid, Lily. _My _face is the adorable one."

"Then you're quite stupid to believe it."

His golden-brown eyes bored into her, and she couldn't look away. The same phrase was repeating through her head like an old mix tape: _you've been hexed. You've been hexed. You've been hexed. You've been hexed. You've been hexed. You've been hexed._

But as the year grew on, the less she believed in it.

* * *

A/N: So...was it good?

Here's the explanation:

I know that probably half of you guys out there that read this were going like: _da fuck? People don't start flying when they find out that they fancy someone! _Yeah, I know that but it _feels _almost horrible and completely amazing, doesn't it? So I thought, Lily hated him for years, she spent all her time one-upping him, retorting back at him, yelling, ignoring, hating and rejecting him for years. It was something that she grew up with and something was strangely _normal _in her lifestyle. The fact that suddenly she develops feelings for some boy that she hated, and all those things that are suddenly changing in her life (Snape turning dark, Voldemort rising, last year at Hogwarts...etc) she's freaking out. Because then suddenly, her entire life is changing and hating James-I'm sorry to say this-was the only thing that she could lean on.

I think that Lily's very unaccustomed to change. She doesn't _want _anything to change. She wants Snape to be her best friend again, she wants to re-live the very first time she entered Hogwarts, the moment that she got her letter, she wants her sister back and she wants to be safe in Hogwarts when she thought it was the most magical and safe place in the world. All these things made her stable and when all these things fell apart, something as trivial as finding out that you _like _someone that you hated could send you over the change. So yeah, and I also think that she starts good with him at the beginning of this year because of all the things that have happened in her life and are happening, she realizes that she is _sick _of fighting and being trivial about things like homework and boys. She finally wants to grow up from her childhood, because she realizes that life is more than being best friends with Snape and Petunia; life is more than hating James Potter, because one day, his name might be the one in the newspaper; the one of the dead.

So yeah...this was my embarrassingly long rant. Please review?

_PhantomPotterGirl_


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